Do you even know what you think about yourself? It’s time to give this some thought. You are what you think, so you had better being thinking some good and useful things.
One reason people are not achieving what they want in life is their mismatched mindset. They know what they want, which is great. However, they can’t see themselves in that picture.
This can be the problem for people who want to lose weight and keep it off. Rather than think of themselves as a slim person, they see themselves as overweight or heavy, etc. So they tend to do what many heavier people do. They tend to move less and eat more.
Although if they saw themselves as a slim person, their mind would adopt the habits of a slim person. They would eat less and move more. In addition, if they saw themselves as a slim and athletic person, they may even develop greater muscle mass or at least stronger muscles.
The same can be said for people and money. If you want to be wealthier, but can’t see yourself as wealthy, you are likely to struggle to build a prosperous financial future. You must take on the role of being wealthy. This means acting appropriately with your money, not just spending it to look wealthier than you currently are.
You are what you think. Make sure your thoughts are working for you.
Let the games begin! What habits could you start? What changes could you get underway? Your two week sprint starts today! In 14 days you will have lived through what is probably the oddest first 2/3rds of a year in your life.
Your goals may be all over the place, like the airline industry. Or they may be laying in tatters after having achieved them all and then some, like Amazon.
Whichever it is, there are only a couple of weeks left in August before the world tries something it hasn’t done in 102 years. During the 1918 Pandemic the world tried to get back to normal over the summer and through the usual autumn activities. Back to work, school and life in general.
Now what can you commit to for the next two weeks? It’s not forever, its simply your two week sprint. Get yourself in decision mode. Make an unbreakable commitment to yourself. Resolve to do your 14 day habit to put you on the road to ever greater success.
We’re coming into the home stretch of this zany 2020 year. Get yourself into great shape in at least one area you’ve been thinking about all year. My sprint has goals and habits focused on food, fitness, finances, fun and non-fiction.
Now, you may be the type that is curious as to how to do it or seething that becoming a billionaire is even allowed. Either way, or somewhere in between, it seems everyone has a view on billionaires.
Your reaction to the idea of a billionaire will say a lot about you and your relationship with money. That may or may not be a good thing. You will have to think it through. Be brutally honest about how money makes you feel.
There are generally two roads you can take if you are intent on becoming a billionaire. The first is to have the money given to you. This can be from inheritance, divorce, donation, charity or a very good friend. Alternatively, you can earn the money through providing a product or service for a very large number of people (c. 87% of billionaires).
Bill Gates sold software. Many estimates suggest that there are over one billion PC’s running a version of Windows. If it cost $100 each to have that software on the PC’s, the company’s revenues would be $100 billion from that one software alone. Not only has he provided a valuable service to many people, hundreds of thousands of people have earned their livelihood with his company.
I’ve willingly given more than $100 to Microsoft, from which Mr Gates has benefitted. It has definitely been worth it and then some.
It’s a good idea to look out beyond the hour, day and week. Some people plan important events years in advance. When you plan ahead, it changes your perspective on life, time and prioritisation.
Our life insurance broker rang me today. He wanted to check that I was happy with the cover we had. Was it the right amount, coverage and term (length of time)? All seemed fine.
However, it did get us running a few scenarios. How old would we be in 10, 20 and 30 years? We also needed to calculate how old the kids would be on those dates. The other point to consider was specific life moments falling in those time periods. Big events we considered were; helping with the children’s university costs, business start up costs and/or potential wedding costs.
Planning ahead does make you confront some brutal truths. In particular, it reminds you that you will either be much older one day, or the alternative. And you should consider that ‘much older’ comes with more than simply more candles on your birthday cake. Your health and wellness is likely to change somewhat.
You plan ahead for things that you want such as holidays, concerts and sporting events. So you should also plan ahead for those events that are inevitable, like ageing and the alternative.
It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Most people would be pretty pleased with that sum of money. Winning £1 million seems to be the magic number for a lot of people.
Songs have been written about having a million dollars. People talk about how life would be different if they could just, ‘win a million’. And many people have dreamt about what they would do if they had a million dollars, pounds or euros show up in their life unexpectedly.
Although today £1 million wouldn’t put you in the exclusive group it would have in 1970, it is still an exciting amount of money to most people. Even for someone who has a net worth of £30 million (i.e. assets less liabilities), this amount would probably be warmly received. This is in part because those assets might produce £3 million in income. So an extra 33% more would likely be welcome.
What would you do if you had £1 million turn up in your bank account? Whether it was from an inheritance (long lost Auntie?), a lottery ticket or some fascinating philanthropist doing things differently.
Wouldn’t winning £1 million be an exciting thing? Would you do something exciting and novel? Or something sensible and pragmatic? Perhaps you would do a little of both.
If you have been trying to change something in your life, without success, check your perceptions. The ‘becoming one of them’ way of thinking might be holding you back.
We all have certain perceptions, stereotypes or biases about things and people. Some of these are very mild and some awaken deep feelings in us.
Some examples where perceptions can be stronger could be; how you see parenthood, a university degree, body weight, a political party, wealth or being organised.
These examples, or others, may not elicit any strong emotion in you. Though some people will have a noticeable level of tension around a few of these subjects.
This tension is good to be aware of and explore. It often comes out in the language used when discussing the topic. Some common phrases are; the wealthy are greedy or being organised is boring.
I’ve been researching and thinking a lot about this movement between tribes and the challenges people encounter. After discussing it with a friend on our run this morning, I heard this episode (#950) of the Quote Of The Day show. It’s a great podcast and this episode was timely.
Although Lisa Jimenez is talking about millionaires, I believe that the ‘becoming one of them‘ thinking applies to most changes a person would like to make.
Remember, say good things about the tribe you’re trying to become a part of. When you don’t, your mind won’t let you join them and have their benefits.
What does freedom mean to you? Is it about going where you like, saying things you think, not having to work or having any dependents? The freedom factor determines a lot about your life.
For many people, they can go where they like. In addition, within a very wide spectrum, they can say what they think. In many developed countries, you can already choose not to work and survive with social assistance programs. Finally, you can choose not to have a partner or children or pets that depend on you. That’s usually in your control.
So, a great many people already have freedom. Sometimes we don’t realise how fortunate we are. Because there are still quite a few people, and places, that don’t have these basic freedoms, which many people take for granted. And it wasn’t that long ago you could have lost your head for being in the wrong spot, saying the wrong thing or not paying bills.
Which leads us on to financial freedom. This is the freedom that allows us to choose those things we want to do, when we want to do them. For many this equates to retirement.
But if you love what you do, you may never ‘retire’.
Wealth. It is frequently fancied while sometimes sneered at. How do you keep it in the family? Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations is a well known, international sentiment, with this in mind.
Historically, the first generation works hard, makes sacrifices, and ensures that the money comes in. In addition, they use it well. Because of this, the first generation can grow their wealth. Often this requires practicality and frugalness. While displaying these values, their children learn more about the ingredients to success and wealth.
Parents will sacrifice their pleasure to provide a better life for their children. During this period, the children see their parent’s effort and sacrifice. Because of this, they often choose or are directed toward more stable and higher income roles. Without having to toil and sacrifice as much as their parents, who shielded them from it, they develop more of a lifestyle led existence.
The parents often sow the seed of the family’s demise. They do not always train their children in hard work, sacrifice, sensible spending and intelligent, long term investing. Certainly the second generation seldom pass key life lessons on to their children.
The third generation, brought up with wealth and a nicer lifestyle, often have few of the key ingredients to maintain or build on the family wealth. Therefore, many times this third generation reduces the family wealth. This may be through poor investing, frivolous spending, family legal disputes or trying to live up to the family name.
You can prevent shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations. Be sure to instil in your children, and grandchildren, the concepts of hard work, sacrifice and developing an investor‘s mindset.
Coronavirus Exit Strategy: Use empty hotels to develop Herd Immunity
Stopping this market meltdown, and the fast growing financial and social challenges, requires two things:
1. Making livelihoods our absolute focus (while still saving lives impacted by Coronavirus and managing hospital beds) and
2. Providing a clearly defined end date to this situation. This can be done by immediately starting to develop herd immunity by creating a Government Organised Voluntary Infection (GOVI) programme, for healthy people, in all the UK’s empty hotels
The Problem:
The market, and people generally, require certainty so they can move forward confidently. Currently there is no certainty when considering the end to this pandemic*. Hoping for a viable vaccine provides no certainty. It is like hoping to win the lottery: It’s worth trying, but don’t count on it as your only strategy.
The Solution:
We need a clear, time-bound exit strategy that can show progress is happening and has a clearly defined end date. A GOVI programme would do both.
GOVI explained:
While people are self-isolating in this Suppression Phase, we can roll out a government organised voluntary infection (GOVI) programme at designated hotels (all UK hotels). The GOVI programme would be similar to the idea of chicken pox parties, where healthy children would get together with an infected child and get infected to be done with it. If 50%-80% of the healthy 6-60 population are going to get the Coronavirus at some time anyway, with mostly mild symptoms, why not get it over with?
For WWII, people volunteered to fight in the war effort knowing that there was a significant risk of death or serious injury. These recruits were checked for being in good health (i.e. no underlying conditions) and then sent off to battle the enemy. With more than 700,000 (mostly empty) hotel rooms in the UK alone, the government could pay hotels to host people who are 20-50 years old, and with no underlying conditions, who volunteer to contract the virus under supervision. They would get checked out by a GP, and if ok, they would go to a government designated hotel where they would contract the virus and stay in the hotel for 7-10 days, until ‘immune’. The volunteers are then checked/tested by a doctor before leaving the hotel to confirm their immunity. Once immune, the volunteer gets a document and badge noting that they can re-enter society.
The government would need to authorise and organise this phase to maintain a controlled spread of the virus. They would need to set out the plan of action, acknowledge the challenges and risks involved and call out for suitable volunteers.
GOVI benefits :
In theory we could have c.700,000 very low risk people gaining immunity every 10 days. Over the next 12 weeks (84 days), we could have roughly 5 million people gaining immunity. This could be happening while the 70+ group and the Underlying Condition (UC) group are protected through self-isolation. Additionally, we could continue to have strong social distancing/lockdown policies in place (Suppression Phase), continue testing and encourage scientists to search for and progress a possible vaccine: all concurrently.
It’s more Churchill D-Day then Chamberlain “Peace for our time”. Let’s take the battle to the enemy rather than try to avoid the inevitable. Advance on the enemy rather than simply shield the citizens from harm.
A war time army of volunteers is required and I believe many would be willing to do this. Since there seems to be an overwhelmingly high recovery rate for healthy people aged 18-50 (99.7%), let’s get it and get on with it.
The ever-growing Immune Army can then help high risk people, relieve care workers, support hospital workers and others, or just get back to work. Ever more volunteers will spend a week in the designated hotels until huge swathes of the population are immune.
Within one year, about half of the young and healthy population (25 million people) in the UK will be immune, without having overrun the NHS. In 2 years, most under 70’s and those without known underlying conditions would have immunity (c.55 million). After communicating this plan, normalcy will start to return in weeks to months, demand will return, markets will stop the slide and maybe reverse, and the world can start to mend.
Summary:
Without creating certainty with a credible exit strategy, the markets will continue in meltdown, workers will be laid off, industries will collapse, and the government will have to finance the entire economy, possibly for years. Adding a GOVI programme in parallel to the other strategies/phases being employed, could greatly improve our chances of saving the most lives, from all causes. In addition, the GOVI programme will also put a floor in the economy with a certain and time-bound exit strategy, which will stop the markets sliding. Finally, this additional strategy could save billions of people from suffering through the severe, drawn out, Depression era future that the trends seem to indicate we are heading for.
Link to Mervyn King on CNBC, on Monday, referring to no viable exit strategy, from minute 8:45 to 9:20 (so 35 seconds long).
* Link to Mervyn King on CNBC, on Monday, referring to no viable exit strategy, from minute 8:45 to 9:20 (so 35 seconds long).
FIND MORE DETAIL:
I have added several follow up thoughts for you on my blog website page called Coronavirus Exit Strategy: GOVI. Points covered consider the next 2-3 years and our options. I’ve also added some sources and supporting detail,
Do we allow up to 264 million people to die worldwide while trying to maintain livelihoods globally or do we attempt to save those people, while corporate, government and personal finances, and therefore all livelihoods, are shredded beyond recognition?
Save lives or save livelihoods? That is the big picture, tough decision that Governments, and their citizens, need to consider, and fairly quickly.
I outlined some of the key considerations in my post the other day which you can access by clicking here.
Most people will have an automatic gut reaction to what is the ‘right’ answer. Try putting that reaction on pause, gather some info, and really think through the next year of unintended consequences. Think like a President or Prime Minister who has to consider millions of others in all their different circumstances.
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